Wawona’s Yesterdays (1961) by Shirley Sargent

WILDLIFE

Frequently beavers have been observed
building dams in the small
creek that cuts through the golf course
only yards distant from the present
highway.

The Wawona area was a private
“island” in Yosemite until 1932, and
as such was good hunting grounds for
Indians and white men. Jay C. Bruce,
son of a Wawona settler and State
Lion Hunter for 28 years, estimates
that he shot 40 mountain lions, 40
wildcats and 11 black bears around
Wawona between 1915 and 1932.
39

Two grizzly bears were killed near
Wawona in the late 1800’s. One skin,
roughly eight by five, hung in Hill’s
Studio from 1887 until 1918 when the
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the
University of California purchased it.
44

Now, it is kept in a refrigerated
room for “long time preservation.”
45

Many men visiting Yosemite are interested,
almost obsessively, in one
thing—fishing! John L. Murphy, early-day
guide, was the first to anticipate
this popular, recreational demand by
stocking Tenaya Lake in 1878.
31

In 1895, the Washburns established
fish hatchery
3
at Wawona where
a Big Creek empties into the South Fork
of the Merced. It was operated by the
State and, each spring for ten years,
Army troopers distributed thousands
of trout in the streams, rivers and lakes
of Yosemite National Park.

The hatchery was torn down in 1933
by the CCC
46
after it had been succeeded
by a larger one in Yosemite
Valley which in turn was superseded in
1957 by the fish hatcheries at
Moccasin Creek and the San Joaquin.
47

Today’s fishermen owe thanks to
these State Hatcheries that plant over
a million fingerlings a year in Yosemite,
and to the tireless troopers who
first distributed the breeding stock
which has had much to do with the
present fish population in the Yosemite
back country.